with Justin Phillips

architect

Your perfect home does exist!

Our real estate market is crazy right now!

I showed a property the other day that was listed for $374,500 and over the weekend they received 24 offers bidding all the way up to $450,000!! Like I said – CRAZY! It is a very hard pill to swallow that you are going to have to overpay that much for a house! Buyers are also sometimes waiving their right to ask for things to be fixed from inspection and possibly coming up with extra money to cover any shortfall in the appraisal! If you have time on your side as a buyer, you may want to consider building a home instead. There are a lot of advantages to building a home as opposed to buying a “used” home.

Building your home is not an easy process by any means, but does give you the ability to lock in a price for a house and finish it the way you want. I would definitely recommend working with a Realtor that is very experienced with new home construction when speaking to your builder. There are a lot of steps and risks when building, so it is crucial that you have someone looking out for your interests when facing off with a builder. Having recently built my own home with a builder, and having been an architect, I love helping people during this exciting and challenging process!

First, you are going to have to use the builder’s contract. This is not written with your best interests at heart. It is written in complete favor of the builder. It is a big commitment to build a home, so it makes sense that the builder will need to protect themselves from all the wishy-washy buyers out there. On the other hand, if they don’t do as instructed you have to know your options and what is going to happen with any deposits you have provided. It can be hard to stomach a lost deposit, but that will always be better than buying a home you are not happy with and paying for it for the next 30 years!

Second, it will help to know all your options. The design center (where you pick all of your finishes and some structural options) can be very overwhelming! Sometimes you are faced with a design consultant that does NOT have a great sense of your style. A lot of the structural and finishes options will need to be selected fairly quickly so they can be ordered and installed without delaying the build.

Third, make sure you observe, document (pictures and video) and ask lots of questions. This is your biggest purchase and you are paying a premium for everything to be new. I took a lot of videos and pictures of my house during construction to make sure I knew where all the pipes and wires were located in the walls for future decorating and remodeling projects.

Fourth, manage your expectations. There is a shortage of sub-contractors (masons, electricians, plumbers, framers, etc.) for hire right now in Colorado. The ones hired by the superintendent may not jive with your standards. Let them do their job and then point out the issues as they arise. I am not an expert on their methods, but I do know what the finished product should look like. Also, don’t worry if the construction site looks like a dumpster exploded. Subcontractors are notoriously messy with their excess materials and lunch remains, but the general contractor that oversees the project should be hiring several different clean up crews towards the end of the process to make sure everything is finished correctly.

Fifth, embrace the warranty! Once you have closed on your new home, had some sort of orientation and are beginning to feel settled, you will notice certain things the builders have forgotten or done incorrectly. Make sure you are well-versed on how to submit warranty requests and communicate with the warranty department and allow them the time needed to get those items fixed. Some builders have a great quality control department to help mitigate some things you might typically find wrong with your new home, and some obviously do not! Builders and contractors are human, but definitely need to take care of the things that you expect to work in your brand new home.

There are several other things to think about when building a home. Please reach out to me if you have come across anything with your new home or are thinking of building a home and aren’t sure where to start. As a former architect and an 11-year Realtor, I really enjoy helping people make the most of their new home construction!